Call for Papers for the 2025 APHI Graduate Conference Now Available!

For its fifteenth annual graduate student conference, Boston University’s American Political History Institute (APHI) invites submissions that examine violence in American public life.

Political violence marked American public life long before the United States’ founding and, as recent presidential elections have shown, expressing political beliefs through violence continues to shape contemporary partisan competition. Acts of political violence cross ideological boundaries, perpetrated by the state’s agents as well as its opponents, in the mainstream as well as on radical margins. Yet violence, in various forms, has been regenerative as well as destructive: shaping, for example, protest movements as well as mass incarceration.

With communications technology revolutions, media have magnified and spread narratives and depictions of violence to wider audiences. Moreover, if Americans are ever-more desensitized to it, then recognizing the many forms of political violence becomes increasingly difficult. Identifying and studying violence, then, is integral to understanding the power relations, identities, and political debates that constitute American public life. We invite scholarly submissions that explore the diverse manifestations and multifaceted character of political violence, covering topics from before European colonization to the recent past.

We are excited to solicit submissions addressing these histories from a variety of perspectives and establishing frameworks for understanding violence in relation to democracy and citizenship. We also encourage comparative study of American violence in global contexts.

All presenters must be current graduate students. Distinguished faculty from both BU and the wider Boston area will serve as commentators for each panel. Submitted papers should be max. 20 pages and presentations at the conference will be no more than 15 minutes. The most outstanding paper will receive the APHI Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Prize, which includes a $1,000 cash award. There is no registration fee for our conference.

Please visit https://bu.edu/aphi/grad-conference/ for more information and updates.